It was back in February this year that I first introduced my pair of very welcome visitors to my back garden. They have been the most elusive couple, and extremely camera-shy, but I recently had the opportunity of encouraging them so stay just a little longer.

Each morning I feed the birds when they visit my garden. The visitors, including kookaburras, magpies, minors and honey eaters, have all become progressively more and more trusting of me, these days congregating within a metre of my feet as I drop a few crumbs of bread for them all to nibble on.

Out of the corner of my eye a few mornings ago, I noticed a flash of “something”, followed by a huge splash! into my swimming pool. The ducks are back!

Needing some form of encouragement for the ducks to stick around, while I quietly dashed inside to grab my camera, I flung a few chunks of bread down to the pool area, which the ducks noticed immediately.

The camera I have used during the past month has become my new best friend. I’m totally obsessed with photography since getting this camera about a month ago. (Obsessed to the point of neglecting my blog, you may have noticed!)

The zoom on my new camera is brilliant! There are so many options available to play around with that I’m feeling like quite the photographer these days! My camera is rarely far from my side, and it’s not unusual for me to take at least fifty to one-hundred photos each day.

Well, the chunks of bread throw into the pool area did the trick, the ducks lingered, whilst I clicked away, photo after photo, from this angle and that. Even when the cute little couple waddled down further into the garden away from the pool, pecking at the grass, I still clicked away, the result being around eighty photos of, well, just the ducks!

This story gets even better though. (I’m hoping at this point that I’m not the only person in the world who is extremely excited by a pair of ducks choosing my back yard to hang out in!) The ducks came back the next day, but this visit, they came right up to the house, sharing the birds bread, just a few steps away from my back door!

It doesn’t get much better than this. Okay, maybe it could; imagine if they will eventually become so trusting that they would eat out of my hand! Am I being too optimist?After quite a bit of research I have learned that this handsome couple are “Australian Wood Ducks”. The breeding season is around November, when the female lays eight to ten eggs. I wonder if they will one day bring their ducklings to visit?